Muddling

Continuing to have a miserable time at work worrying about the apartment thing. I was unable to screw up my courage to call places to look at today.

Things got a little bit better later in the day, though. Mom suggested that if I really want to, it's probably not too late to make plans to visit my family for Christmas, which is starting to seem attractive. Ideally I'd want to see if I can find someone who can feed my cats once a day while I'm gone, although due to my location I think I would have trouble lining up people willing to drive here. I might be able to find a cat sitting company, if my vet could recommend one. As a last resort, I could possibly board the cats at the vet.

It's something of an attractive option. My boss, JP, says it's worth considering; he seemed a little taken aback that I haven't seen my folks in nearly a year. There's a possibility that I might have someone coming to visit me over Christmas here, but it's not clear to me how likely it is that it will pan out, and probably I won't know for sure until sometime in December. So, I need to decide soon one way or the other.

JP also gave me the practical advice that I should think about calling about just one apartment a day, rather than working myself up to make a barrage of calls. Sensible advice; I should try that. He also suggested another possible strategy for finding places to call. He also pointed out that he lived in the Palo Alto and Menlo Park areas for many years, and that if I look for a place there, he and others can advise me if they think it's a bad area or whatever.

So, that's helpful. Maybe I will see what I can see in the near future and think about Christmas plans independent of that. No doubt if I happen to find something, I can schedule a moving in around that, somehow.

JP is really good at thinking calmly in almost every situation and just going out and doing whatever needs to be done. I wish I were like that, and I'm not sure why I'm not.

I did have a good workout this morning, though. My first exercise since Friday, due to my busy weekend and lack of sleep as a result. It was cloudy, cool, and breezy, and I had an excellent run. Shaved another five seconds off my best time. JP says he'd like to meet me some morning to go jogging together. He's said before that he doesn't care for jogging and prefers using the treadmill, but perhaps my regular routine is starting to break down his defenses.

Tonight I went up to Borrone after work to read. I had the unfortunate experience of taking someone else's parking space.

What happened is this: I drove into the parking garage, and at the first turn I saw someone in an SUV sitting near the stairs with his hazard lights on (right, not his turn signal). I thought, "Oh, he's picking someone up/dropping someone off, or he's run upstairs on a quick errand." (I couldn't actually see that there was someone in the SUV. After all, it's an SUV!) I turned the corner and saw someone pulling out, and thought, "Gee, what luck" and took the spot. Just as I parked, the guy in the SUV had gotten out of his truck, rapped on my window, and when I opened it he said, "Thanks" in disgust, and walked off. I had just started to apologize and was about to offer to back out, but he pretty much just stalked away and drove off as quickly as he could.

I felt pretty bad about it, but felt it was an honest mistake and didn't have a chance to make amends. I hate when other people steal spaces from me. I'll have to think on this next time someone does.

At any rate, I had a good night of reading, once I got over this little mishap.